Arrowhead Brand 100% Mountain Spring Water’s latest video, “Recycling Is A Beautiful Thing,” unfolds in beautiful stop-motion animation while advocating the importance of recycling and features Arrowhead’s new 500ml ReBorn bottle. The campaign idea and concept is by Ad Agency Threshold Interactive, produced by Bent Image Lab and directed by Bent’s Solomon Burbridge.

“The awareness aspect in this spot is really important,” says Burbridge. “If everyone were more aware about the things that we were accidentally throwing away, we would be able to use a lot more recycled material in the bottles that are made.”

An assembly of images such as floating brightly colored bottles, anamorphic art sculptures, and a handcrafted forest landscape composes the 1 minute 14 second spot and educates the audience on how much waste we actually accumulate in discarded recyclable bottles. Through animated copy lines the spot relays the fact that over 2.8 billion plastic bottles ended up in California landfills last year. To promote recycling, Arrowhead launched its new 500ml “ReBorn” bottle made with 50% recycled plastic and released this video.

“Recycling is something that someone had to address and I think it’s awesome that Arrowhead Mountain Spring Water is branding themselves with it,” says Bent Art Director Greg Arden. “It’s part of their concept to be kind to nature, so it’s really cool to work with them.”

Arrowhead and its corporate parent Nestlé Waters North America (NWNA) have made it part of their company’s responsibility to promote environmental consciousness. To name just a few of its sustainability accomplishments, NWNA has reduced the amount of PET plastic in their most popular .5 Liter bottles by 60% over the last 15 years, they reduced CO2 emissions by 30% for every liter of water they produce, and built 9 LEED certified bottling plants.

To keep in line with the recycling theme the Bent team incorporated as many reusable elements into the production as possible. Recreating the forest image from the Arrowhead label, the crew used buttons for rocks, paper for trees, discarded green sweaters for landscapes and tin foil to build mountains like the ones from which Arrowhead spring water is sourced. For other sets they used recyclable bottles of all shapes and colors. One art piece comprised multiple hanging bottles suspended in a circular pattern which, when horizontally spotlighted, reflected an image of the earth.

“The earth piece comes from a type of art that’s been around for a long time,” says Burbridge. “It’s called anamorphic art which is usually a sculpture or sometimes a painting that looks one way from one direction and completely different from another.”

“There’s so many art elements and production techniques involved in this video and so many different sets and scenes,” says Bent Producer Amy Rosko. “I hope people enjoy it and appreciate all of the creativity in recycling and the unique elements that went into making it.”

The Bent crew hopes that the spot will catch the audience’s attention and make them think about the importance of the message of recycling.

“From top to bottom the whole recycling idea has been incorporated in every aspect of the production,” says Bent Executive Producer Ray Di Carlo. “Hopefully every little bit will help.”

Arrowhead’s “Recycling Is A Beautiful Thing” video was released online on February 13, 2013.

Source: Bent Image Lab

Jennifer Wolfe is Director of News & Content at Animation World Network.